Ready. Aim. Fire! Hot dog cannon the bomb at ballparks

Hot dogs have been coupled with baseball nearly as long as
grass, but the epiphany that resulted in wieners being routinely launched into
the audience is only a decade old.

The Phillie Phanatic has been launching hot dogs into the stands for more than a decade.

Philadelphia’s Hatfield Quality Meats gets either the credit
or the blame for this particular form of fast food, in which hot dogs are shot
from a pressurized launcher into the audience, where fans wrestle for them with
an ardor normally reserved for foul balls.

“It’s become a prestige thing to catch one,” said Kim Burgess,
senior director of marketing for the Kansas City Royals, whose Slugger mascot
has been launching dogs into the far reaches of Kaufmann Stadium at every game
for the past five years, as part of Schweigert Foods’ team sponsorship.

“We’re always looking for things that attract young and old
and there are no age limits on this; everybody loves hot dogs and everyone
loves the idea of shooting something a long way.”

Perhaps because it’s slightly inane, hot dog lift-offs are
usually left to mascots. Tom Burgoyne, the Phillie Phanatic since 1994, recalls
the whole thing started as a way to … er … launch a kids brand: Phanatic Franks.
They were smaller, sweeter and softer than Phillies Franks. And they were in
need of a gimmick. It was around the time that slingshotting T-shirts into
crowds was getting popular.

“Someone decided shooting them into the crowd was the thing to
do,” Burgoyne said.

Hatfield’s engineers got right on it — eventually developing a
carbon dioxide launcher that could shoot dogs a few hundred feet. Looking to
add some corporate ID, the engineers designed a wiener-shaped case with the
company’s logo on the side. The 1996 season opened in Philadelphia with
airborne hot dogs.

“It went over instantly,” said Burgoyne, who dons a chef hat
and apron (on top of his Phanatic costume, naturally) about once every series
to launch dogs from a second-generation wiener cannon mounted on his ATV.

The cannon can launch a sausage 250 to 300 feet. Upper-deck
shots are common and, while no one has hit a ball out of Citizens Bank Park in
its first 2 1/2 years, the Phanatic has launched a dog over the right-field
roof and onto the concourse.

“There’s no way I thought I’d be doing this for 10 years,” the
Phanatic laughed, “but people just don’t get tired of it.”

It’s not a bad marketing tool, either. “Everyone just goes
nuts the first time they see it,” said Phillies National Sales Manager Rob
MacPherson, “and it works well for Hatfield, because it gets people thinking
about hot dogs at a place where they are readily available.”

An appearance with Eagles mascot Swoop on a “Monday Night
Football” telecast generated considerable interest. Verb demonstrated the
launcher at the 1997 winter baseball meetings, but its $12,500 price and its
size held him back. Eventually it was shrunken to something that can fit on the
back of a mascot — and to a more manageable price of $6,500 to $7,000.

Verb said he’s sold 40 to 50 since then, mostly to clubs,
including the St. Louis Cardinals, the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim and minor
league franchises such as the Salt Lake Stingers, Tacoma Rainiers and
Montgomery Biscuits. He’s also sold them to barbecue and sausage manufacturers.

“This isn’t something I’m getting rich off of, but it’s proved
to be a great tool to engage fans,” Verb said. “Everybody wants to touch
something from the field.”